Marked for Samuel Mohammed
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Jan 2032
Abdul Asante is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.84 with 38 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Match3 Jan 2032
Hasaacas are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 10 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings5 Jan 2032
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad5 Jan 2032
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hasaacas will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market5 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout5 Jan 2032
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hasaacas may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad5 Jan 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Isaac Hemans and Hasaacas agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Words exchanged at Hasaacas
Blankson Anoff and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match3 Jan 2032
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Abeiku Paintsil
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Andrew Asante has become a man the manager trusts
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Sep 2031
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad8 Sep 2031
31 days out for Jonathan Appiah after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hasaacas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings8 Sep 2031
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.55, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match6 Sep 2031
No clean sheets in sight for Hasaacas
7 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Market8 Sep 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hasaacas can pretend not to have heard.
Match6 Sep 2031
5 matches without a win for Hasaacas
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Hasaacas are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom8 Sep 2031
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
Transfer targets8 Sep 2031
Everything agreed with Hearts of Oak, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad8 Sep 2031
Abdul Asante in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Jan 2031
40 goals and a season average of 7.82. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match18 Jan 2031
Hasaacas leaking at the back
8 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Abdul Asante in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hasaacas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets20 Jan 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match18 Jan 2031
1‑2 to Liberty Professionals, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout20 Jan 2031
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad20 Jan 2031
Mendos Rickson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout20 Jan 2031
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Player ratings20 Jan 2031
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Aug 2030
The medical room confirms 14 days on the sidelines for Andrew Asante, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Words exchanged at Hasaacas
Abdul Asante and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Blankson Anoff has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad12 Aug 2030
A row about effort at Hasaacas
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Blankson Anoff was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market12 Aug 2030
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Samuel Mohammed is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market12 Aug 2030
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bernard Owusu has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market12 Aug 2030
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Baba Inusah has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market12 Aug 2030
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Patrick Kyereh has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout12 Aug 2030
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.